Metered Access

Crain's Detroit Business is a metered site. Print and digital subscribers have unlimited access to stories, but registered users are limited to eight stories every 30 days. After viewing three metered stories, you'll be asked to register or log in. After eight more stories in 30 days, you'll be asked to subscribe.

Photo by Shinola
Four new city clocks in Detroit are based on Shinola's pocket-watch design.

Kroger opens state's first 'marketplace'

Kroger Co. was to open its first new Michigan "marketplace" store in Shelby Township Feb. 23. The 114,000-square-foot store and fuel center on 23 Mile Road near Hayes Road is Kroger's largest location in the state.

In addition to groceries, the store will offer toys; home essentials; men's, women's and children's apparel; and shoes from brands including Skechers, Champion, Signature by Levi Strauss & Co., Gloria Vanderbilt and Carhartt; baby items from Baby World; Fred Meyer Jewelers; an in-store location for New York-based Murray's Cheese, and Starbucks.

Kroger has a marketplace outlet in Lambertville, but that was converted from an existing store.

On the move

Donovan Powell

• The Detroit City FC semipro soccer team hired Donovan Powellas general manager. Powell, 30, most recently worked in sales with the Columbus Blue Jackets of the National Hockey League. He will be Detroit City FC's first full-time employee since it began play in 2012.

Company news

The Federal Reserve Building in Detroit will be the new home of the Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News and the newspaper agency that serves the two papers.

• Shinola/Detroit LLC plans to install four city clocks — including one at Cobo Center — based on its iconic pocket watch design. Shinola President Jacques Panis couldn't say how much the clocks would cost, but indicated they will be installed before daylight saving time starts March 9.

• The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit Newswill relocate to the old Federal Reserve building at 160 W. Fort St. this summer, a source familiar with the deal told Crain's. Joyce Jenereaux, president of the newspapers' joint business operation, the Detroit Media Partnership, said in an email to employees that a long-term lease was expected to be signed in four to five weeks, the newspapers reported. Lease details were not disclosed. Dan Gilbert owns the 167,443-square-foot Federal Reserve building. The newspapers' current 415,000-square-foot building is at 615 W. Lafayette.

• Ann Arbor-based Oxford Cos. LLCbought the 223,000-square-foot Northeast Corporate Center office complex in Ann Arbor on Auction.com for $21.5 million, according to a news release. Its key tenants are ForeSee Results Inc., the University of Michigan Health System and Chicago-based Cole Taylor Bank.

• Troy-based auto supplier NS International Ltd. could invest up to $6 million in renovating former Magna International Inc. offices it has leased in Troy, where it will relocate 100 current employees and could add 150 more.

• Milwaukee-based supplier Johnson Controls Inc., which has its Automotive Experience unit in Plymouth, plans to sell its headliner and sun visor business to an affiliate of Atlas Holdings LLC, a Greenwich, Conn.-based private equity firm, Automotive News reported. Terms were not disclosed.

• A former Denso Corp. executive is expected to serve one year and one day in a federal prison after agreeing to plead guilty to one charge of obstruction of justice in an ongoing price-fixing investigation of auto suppliers, Automotive News reported. Kazuaki Fujitani deleted numerous electronic documents after learning that the FBI executed a search warrant on Denso's U.S. subsidiary in Southfield, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

• Detroit-based P & B Investments Inc.sold the vacantPark Apartments building in downtown Detroit for $3.25 million in an off-market deal to Joe Barbat, CEO and chairman of Southfield-based Wireless Toyz. Barbat said he plans $6 million in renovations to the building and will rename it the Briggs House Residence.

• The genetic research startup Genomenon, developed by University of Michigan pathologists Mark Kiel, Megan Lim and Kojo Elenitoba-Johnson, won the $40,000 first prize in the Michigan Collegiate Innovation Prize competition organized by the UM College of Engineering's Center for Entrepreneurship.

Other news

• The Detroit City Councilprivatized trash pickup, approving a five-year, $120 million trash-hauling contract with Sterling Heights-based Rizzo Environmental Services Inc. and Advanced Disposal Inc. The city announced that its $18,000-per-month contract with Recycle Here for drop-off recycling services would be retained at least through July 2015.

• Oakland Community College trustees adopted a resolution supporting Chancellor Timothy Meyer, who received a vote of no confidence from the college's full-time faculty.

• Median home sale prices in metro Detroit increased by 37.5 percent year over year — from $80,000 in January 2013 to $110,000 in January 2014 — but sales went down by 13.8 percent. Farmington Hills-based Realcomp Ltd. reported.

• A new 104,000-square-foot academic building on the Stephen M. Ross School of Business campus and a renovation of the Kresge Business Administration Library are part of a $135 million construction project approved by University of Michigan regents.

• The University of Michigan Kidney Epidemiology and Cost Center in Ann Arbor was given a five-year, $8.5 million federal contract to serve as the coordinating center for the United States Renal Data System.

• Satisfaction with online shopping fell by 4 percentage points to a 78 on a 100-point scale in 2013 — a 12-year low in the annual University of Michigan-based American Customer Satisfaction Index of retail and e-commerce.

• State Schools Superintendent Mike Flanaganterminated the contract giving the Education Achievement Authority, which runs 15 low-performing schools in Detroit, exclusive functions of a turnaround district that could take over more failing public schools across the state, the AP reported.

• The Michigan Public Service Commission's fourth annual report confirmed that the state's utility companies met their renewable-energy production goals for 2012 and hit 6.9 percent in 2013. Utilities must reach 10 percent by 2015.

• The Board of State Canvassers agreed to allow Raise Michigan to begin collecting signatures to place a question on the November ballot to raise the minimum wage in Michigan to $10.10 an hour, higher than the $9.50 previously discussed, from the current $7.40 by January 2017. The group will have to collect 258,088 valid signatures by May 28 to place it on the ballot.

• Michigan lawmakers are considering a bill that would provide an extra $100 million for state and local road maintenance, AP reported. Also, a panel voted to cut the state's income tax rate from 4.25 percent to 4.05 percent by 2016, and House Republicans proposed an end to unlimited medical benefits for people in catastrophic vehicle accidents. The proposal would allow most drivers to buy $10 million in personal injury protection and guarantee a 10 percent cut in premiums for two years.

Obituaries

Angelo B. Henderson

• E. Delbert Gray, former president and CEO of the Michigan Minority Supplier Development Council (then known as the Michigan Minority Business Development Council), died Feb. 13. He was 69.

• Angelo Henderson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who worked at the Wall Street Journal and The Detroit News and hosted the "Your Voice" program on WCHB AM 1200, died Feb. 15. He was 51. The funeral is 11 a.m. Monday at Greater Grace Temple in Detroit.